Goethe Fellows
»Sinophone Classicism«: News from the Goethe Fellow project by Zhiyi Yang
The lecture series on cultural memory in the contemporary Chinese-speaking world enters its second cycle. An academic symposium will delve more deeply into the topic.

In the Chinese-speaking world, artistic positions that adopt classical Chinese traditions have recently gained in popularity. This multi-layered aesthetic phenomenon is the focus of the Goethe Fellow project by Zhiyi Yang, professor of sinology at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. She is examining how Chinese traditions enter the modern culture of the Sinophone world and what function they assume in this global, increasingly digital space.

Public lecture series
The public lecture series was opened in the winter semester of 2021 with a lecture by the renowned literary scholar David Der-wei Wang. The subsequent lectures addressed the role of traditional moral concepts such as »filial fidelity« in Chinese society (Marius Meinhof), the struggle of youth to be simultaneously »Chinese« and »global« on social media (Jeroen de Kloet), and the significance of calligraphy in Chinese film (Markus Nornes). The poet-in-exile YANG Lian was also a guest. The English-language lectures were held in »hybrid« format or exclusively online, which had the advantage of also allowing interested parties from Asia and the USA to attend. Some of the lectures can be viewed on the YouTube channel of the Forschungskolleg YouTube Kanal des Kollegs.

The series will continue in the summer semester 2022 with lectures on video games, modern dance, television series and theater: Paize Keulemans, Princeton University (April 28, 2022); Chieh-Ting Hsieh, National Chengchi University (Taipei) (May 19, 2022); Rossella Ferrari, University of Vienna (June 9, 2022); Michelle Yeh, University of California (July 6, 2022). The focus will be on the use of digital media in these contemporary art forms.

Academic Symposium
Zhiyi Yang and David Der-wei Wang (Harvard University) are planning an academic symposium for June 10, 2022. The »Harvard-Frankfurt-Lingnan« Symposium will bring together scholars from East Asia, Europe and the USA to discuss »Classicism in Digital Times«.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Zhiyi Yang, Goethe University (z.yang@em.uni-frankfurt.de)
Beate Sutterlüty, Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften (b.sutterluety@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de)